


A Lone Sentry on Watch

by ncruuk



Series: Save and Sacrifice [2]
Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Gen, UNIT
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-13
Updated: 2017-02-13
Packaged: 2018-09-24 02:05:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,189
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9694976
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ncruuk/pseuds/ncruuk
Summary: He knew that she knew that he knew something had just happened - not the details, he never knew details and didn’t wish to, that wasn’t his place.He was just an old soldier at his post, keeping watch.It was the least he could do.  It was all he could do.[Immediate follow-on from part 1 in the series]





	

**Author's Note:**

> Please read part 1 of the series first - otherwise this will make no sense.

Her footsteps echoed as she walked along the stone floor of the Medieval section of the Tower.  Instinctively, she altered her stride pattern and her steps slowed as she approached the hand scanner that would, after a moment’s pause and pulse of a suitably eerie dull blue light, confirm her identity and open the door.

 

Continuing on along the carpet, Kate Stewart ignored the various turnings to her left and right that would see her arrive at the labs and offices that, during the more conventional hours of the working day would be full of the scientists, soldiers and administrators who worked on the mundane and magnificent with equal dedication.  No longer escorted by her echoes, her footsteps muffled by the carpet, she met no one, saw no one and heard no one, just as no one saw or met her.  Silent, except for the almost inaudible rasp of the fabric of her suit as she walked steadily along, navigating her way through the building, her back straight and head up.  Her burden was invisible to see but weighed heavily on her shoulders, shoulders squared with determination, her jaw firm with respect and her heart heavy with regret, but on she walked.

 

The last door rattled as she pushed it open, the emergency exit compliant door lock noisily yielding to her firm push on the bar, her measured step never faltering, her momentum seeing the door swing open and bash firmly against the wall.  It was a Medieval wall, it could cope with the door, had withstood far more than her simple fury.

 

Turning to her left, her heels slipping and sliding slightly as they found traction on the damp cobbles, she carried on towards the Scaffold Site.  Her left hand remained in her trouser pocket, her clenched fist the only outward sign of her inward rage at the injustice of it all.  Turning to her left again, she walked on past the Green on her left and the remains of Coldharbour Gate and the Wall of the Innermost Ward, landmarks that in daylight would be surrounded by groups of tourists, a mixture of loudly bored and quietly fascinated, taking pictures of the views and of each other, looking and yet, somehow, never quite seeing the massive machinery of UNIT sitting just beneath the surface.  Which was how she liked it.  Carrying on, her thumb still rubbing the engraving on the gold fountain pen still clasped in her right hand, she passed by the Ravens’ accommodation, for once not detouring to look in on some of her most unusual yet reliable and dedicated ‘staff’.

 

Oblivious to the cold night air, her frosting breath disappearing into the fog that had settled over the Tower, Kate was conscious of her proximity to the Bloody Tower, famous so the tourist guides explained, for its unpleasant history and associations with torture.  Pausing to navigate another set of security locks, a well concealed twenty-first century anachronism in this otherwise ancient monument, she slowed and took a moment to note the irony of her situation and location.  Ahead of her, on the other side of St Thomas’ Tower, was Traitor’s Gate, the entry point to the Tower for prisoners, brought down river from Whitehall and beyond.  Here she was, turning to her right and carrying on, away from the Gate, a woman with the death of 8 young men only minutes before squarely on her conscience, a woman free to move amongst places where people sentenced as traitors were incarcerated and sentenced to death.  She didn’t feel she deserved to be free.

 

Passing the Bell Tower on her left, she approached the Byward Tower, gravitating towards the lone light burning brightly at a small window despite the latest of the hour, a shining beacon in the fogginess of the night.  Unclenching her left hand, she reached into the darkness and with an accuracy honed from years of experience, felt the discrete keypad which, with the right sequence of keys unlocked the door, the magnetic locks clunking to disengage sounding loud in the quiet of the night.

 

“Ma’am.”  The Yeoman Warder on duty looked up from his desk, his tone respectful and courteous but showing no surprise to see her or curiosity about her purpose.

 

“George.”  Smiling tightly, Kate stamped her feet on the door mat, taking in the brightly lit space of the modern gatekeeper’s room furnished with chrome, pale wood and glass with the CCTV feeds forming their mosaic of shifting images, only now aware of how cold it was and how blue her feet and fingers probably were.

 

“Fog’s down on the river,” he observed as he stood up and walked towards the back of the room where, hanging against the wall, were a line of capes.  “Came in on the tide and getting thicker,” he explained, returning with one he’d taken from the last hook, and placing it on the counter nearest the door that would take her into the world beyond the Tower.  “Best borrow a cape Ma’am.”

 

“Thank you.”  Smiling automatically, Kate put her fountain pen on the counter next to the cape and picked it up, the dark blue fabric of the cape shifting in her hands, revealing flashes of red as the lining was glimpsed. Swinging it easily around her shoulders and fastening the clasp at her throat, the red collar sitting tidily around her neck, she picked up her fountain pen and in three measured steps was through the door and out, free from the Tower.

 

Returning to his seat, George watched her progress in the CCTV cameras as she followed the line of the wall around the full perimeter of the moat, knowing she was headed out onto Tower Bridge.  He knew that she knew that he knew something had just happened - not the details, he never knew details and didn’t wish to, that wasn’t his place.  He was just an old soldier at his post, keeping watch as generations of Beefeaters and soldiers had done before him, securing the Tower, serving their Commanders with a loyalty and dedication that the good Commanders returned with interest, and she was one of the best.  He didn’t know what had happened, or where - he never knew until he saw the notification of her code being used by the Bloody Tower.  

 

That was when he’d gone and got the cape and hung it on the last hook on the left, the one that was otherwise never used, ready for her.  They didn’t know if she knew, knew that the ‘spare’ cape they always had to lend her on nights like this wasn’t really spare - she probably did.  It had been once, in her father’s day, a genuine spare cape that had hung on that hook, forgotten about when its owner had moved on, whether to another post on Earth or in Heaven they no longer remembered.  Then it had been lent spontaneously to the Brigadier when he’d undertaken his first midnight walk, old soldiers recognising the burdens he was carrying, the demons only he could slay.  They couldn’t shoulder arms with him, couldn’t defeat a Commander’s doubts and regrets now the battle was over and the lives lost, but they could provide a shield against the dampness of the river and the darkness of the night.

 

It had hung, on that hook, for years in between.  

 

Commanders came and went, their duties done with diligence but without the need to carry their burdens out into the night, to find a moment in time and space to order their thoughts and vent their emotions as the lives that had been lost on their watch became the ghosts that had the ability to haunt the lives of those who still lived.

 

And then she came, a woman and a scientist, not a soldier.  Here to do exactly what the others had done before, the same and yet so very, very different.  They’d not known who or what she was at first, these old soldiers manning their posts, keeping their watches.  A woman called Stewart, a scientist called Kate - all they knew was what she was not: Kate Stewart, not a soldier, not what they thought they needed.

 

Three weeks was all it took for them to admit that they were wrong, to realise, these old soldiers keeping watch at their most ancient of posts.  Three weeks for the world to require her to give the order, make the call that unleashed the actions that saved what needed to be saved, no matter what might be sacrificed.  Three weeks for them to realise that while they may not yet understand who Kate Stewart was, they knew now what she was - she was the Commander who wore her decisions squarely on her shoulders, carried the consequences of her actions in her heart.  Here, again, was the Commander the young soldiers needed, the one who expected loyalty and dedication but gave it back with interest; here, again, was a Commander who walked out of the Tower in the darkest part of the night to find some time and space to sort their burdens and recognise their ghosts.  Here, once more, was someone who needed to borrow a cape.

 

Watching her progress in the CCTV cameras, seeing her turn onto the approach to Tower Bridge, George wondered if she’d noticed over the years how they’d changed the cape, managed to gradually shift towards a cape that fitted her.  They couldn’t ask for measurements, couldn’t send a cape away for fitting because then the hook would be empty, and that could never happen.  They could not fail to have a cape to lend when it was needed, so they made the changes gradually, switching it with capes that were a closer match, a better fit.  Now, after all these years, it wasn’t possible to find a better fit, either for the cape which was hers or the job she’d made her own.

 

As she passed through the final camera’s field of view, her walk around the perimeter almost done, he wondered if she knew he watched her lonely trek, a lone old soldier keeping watch over her.  Probably: it was the sort of thing she knew, instinct he supposed, same as her father.  Unable to see her any more, her walk taking her out onto the bridge now, he stood up and stretched, old joints creaking as he shook off the stiffness.  Glancing at the clock he saw the time, almost half past 4 in the morning: another three hours or so until dawn, until his watch was over.  Time then, to put the kettle on and make a pot of tea - he didn’t usually bother with the pot, not when it was just him, but he’d make the pot now, like he always did when she was out on her walk.  That way, when she came back in and gave him back the cape, he could offer her a cup and look her in the eye when he assured her it was ‘no bother’ and ‘already in the pot’.  That way, she could accept with a smile that was kind and genuine and lean against the radiator, warming up as she asked about the latest antics of the tourists, laughing at their mishaps and marvelling at their muddles.  She never drank the tea, using the mug to warm her hands and leaving before it was cool, her journey back to her post delayed only by a couple of minutes but in those couple of minutes he could see that she was restored, ready to face the challenge of the new day.

 

By the time she’d be back in the UNIT rabbit warren, her cape would be on its hook and the mug of tea washed up and in the cupboard, no traces of her walk except in computer logs that noted she’d passed that way.

 

And that was how they liked it, these old soldiers keeping watch.  Hers was not a walk of weakness but a sign of strength, a strength she had within her but which needed time and space to find.  And that was why they kept her secret, these old soldiers keeping watch, because to a man they understood the orders that she gave, the weight they placed on her.  They understood because they knew they were the lucky ones who’d been given the orders, done their best and used their slices of luck.  Their knees might creak and their bones may ache but they were the lucky ones, the ones who were alive to remember those who died, to hope and pray the lessons of the past were understood in the present.

 

Six months they’d taken, remembered George, to get the cape to be hers.  Six months of tweaks and minor changes as they adapted to her ways and in the process discovered who and what she was.

 

She was a woman and a scientist.  She was not a soldier.  She was not who they were used to.

 

But she was what they needed.

 

She was her father’s daughter.

 

She was a Lethbridge-Stewart.

 

She was Greyhound One.

 

She was Kate Stewart.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading


End file.
